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Tolerance and Non-Discrimination

Over the past decade, Commissioners, the OSCE, and OSCE PA have responded actively to heightened anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-migrant, and religious and racist violence in the region, including against Roma and People of African Descent in Europe and North America. Commission efforts have also included annual hearings, legislation, and inter-parliamentary initiatives on topics ranging from anti-Semitism and Black Europeans to discrimination against Christians and Muslims in the OSCE region and OSCE Partner States.

Commissioner initiatives, including OSCE PA resolutions, set the stage for the OSCE’s creation in 2004 of three Personal Representatives focused on combating anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and religious and racial discrimination and the creation of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination (TND) Office within ODIHR. The TND office annually collects hate crimes data and provides training and assistance to police, prosecutors, and civil society to combat prejudice and discrimination. The Commission holds regular hearings with the three Personal Representatives and head of the TND Office. Commissioner initiatives have included joint efforts with European Parliamentarians to advance inclusive governance through regular Transatlantic Minority Political Leadership events in the European Parliament and the State Department and German Marshall Fund to advance diverse and inclusive leaders through the Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network; and the introduction of legislative efforts in the U.S. Congress such as the U.S-EU Joint Action Plan to combat prejudice and discrimination.

Report: Russians in Estonia: Problems and Prospects

Tuesday, September 01, 1992

In summer 1991, the Helsinki Commission examined the situation of Russians in Estonia, in the form of a chapter of a larger report on national minorities in the CSCE context. The present report is essentially an update, and was occasioned by the most significant event affecting the status of Russians in Estonia since the country regained its independence in_ September 1991. In February 1992, Estonia passed a law that restored citizenship only to citizens of the interwar Estonian Republic and their descendants. Consequently, the great majority of Estonia's Russians, most of whom came to Estonia after its forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940, did not automatically becom citizens of Estonia and could not vote in the country's first: national election after the restoration of its independent, statehood, held on September 20, 1992.
Estonia's citizenship law and the resultant exclusion of about 40 percent of the resident population from voting elicited from Russians, both inside and outside Estonia, charges of discrimination and human rights violations. Russian government officials and parliamentarians protested Estonia's treatment of Russians in international forums, in the media, and in Washington and other Western capitals. Considering their allegations of human rights violations, the Helsinki . Commission sent two staffers to Estonia to talk to Russians and Estonians and Study the situation on the ground before the election and on election day. Their primary mission was not to observe the election per se and this is not an election report; in fact, the Commission believed that the Estonian election authorities were quite capable of organizing free and fair elections. Rather, the Commission hoped to examine the reasons for, and possible consequences of, Estonia's deliberate decision not to giye citizenship and the vote to. some 40 percent of the population.
The following is a report of the Commission staffs investigation. Their research and conclusions are based on interviews and discussions conducted in Tallinn, Kohtla-Jarve, Sillamae and Narva. The last three cities are in northeast Estonia and are mostly populated by Russians.

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Revolt Against the Silence - The State of Human Rights in Romania: An Update

Friday, December 01, 1989

Patterns of repression in Romania remain sadly the same year after year. The Romanian regime has kept up pressure on members of religious and national minorities, as well as on all who have sought to express themselves freely. It has harassed and punished would-be emigrants by removing them from jobs and housing. It has exiled writers, philosophers and former leaders. It has jailed those who have sought the means to worship freely, and used psychiatric incarceration to punish free expression.
The regime has steadily curtailed the opportunities for members of ethnic minorities to maintain and cultivate their cultural heritage, cutting minority-language instruction and publishing to a minimum. Minority cultural and family ties have also been strictly limited. The regime has used violence and threats of violence to discourage citizens from seeking to exercise their rights. Many Romanian dissidents inside and outside the country have received black-bordered death threats, widely believed to be a favorite calling-card of Romania's notorious Securitate (secret police).
Increasingly, the regime's persecution has touched all Romanian citizens, who suffer from severe, state-imposed food shortages and the threat of displacement through the sjstematizare, or systematization, program. Despite the Romanian Government's March announcement, with great fanfare, that it had repaid the country's foreign debt, there is no sign that the regime will reorder its fiscal priorities in favor of consumption. Rationing continues unabated, while construction of new industrial projects seems to be moving forward with redoubled speed.

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The State of Human Rights in Romania: An Update

Thursday, December 01, 1988

One year after worker-led disturbances erupted in Brasov and other Romanian cities, Romanian society remains tense, divided and increasingly impatient with a regime that exhibits little regard for the well-being of its citizenry. While the Romanian Party and Government have succeeded in quashing most open expressions of dissent, they have failed abysmally in garnering popular support for their programs -- if such support was ever solicited or even de­sired. Systematically depriving its citizens of the possibility to exer­cise the most fundamental human rights, and robbing them of the social and economic rights it supports so heartily in words, the Ro­manian regime has lost any legitimacy it might once have enjoyed among its citizens.
Romanian citizens and recent emigrants from that country testi­fy that repression has grown in the year after Brasov. While most prisoners of conscience were released under a January 1988 amnes­ ty, dissidents continue to be surveilled, followed, called in repeatedly for questioning by the Securitate, and placed under house arrest. Telephone lines are cut and mail intercepted to increase the dissidents' sense of isolation not only from the world outside Romania, but also from contacts within the country. Censorship has become more severe, and the security apparatus maintains an even more visible presence than before. The notorious but still unpublished Decree 408, which requires Romanian citizens to report to police all meetings with foreign citizens within 24 hours, is stringently enforced.
Romania's economy continues to deteriorate. Fuel and electricity have been rationed for years. Staple foods, including milk, bread and flour, are rationed, and in many localities even these are unavailable. Meat is a rarity; soup bones only occasionally appear in stores.
Decades of financial misplanning and inefficient industrial devel­opment have led to the dire condition of the Romanian economy, making it the poorest in Europe after Albania. The Government continues to repay its foreign debts at a swift rate and modernizeat the expense of the Romanian people's well-being.

Commissioner Claiborne Pell and others in attendance, in this series of hearings, looked at their own country’s record on the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. This hearing signified the first time that a state belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), or the “Conference,” had looked at its own record in such a manner, taking into account criticism by other signatories and private domestic monitoring groups, no less.
This series of hearings’ purpose was to ascertain progress accomplished, learn what more needs to be achieved, and proclaim a reaffirmation of the U.S. commitment to the Helsinki Final Act’s full implementation.